My name is Dave Stancliff. Walk down the road of life with me each day. You'll find news and my views. I'm a veteran, an independent thinker, and a former newspaper publisher and editor.
This blog is not about making money. It's a forum to share with. All views expressed are mine, unless I note otherwise.

Friday, July 13, 2012

American religious institutions losing members due to lack of confidence in them

Good Day Humboldt County!

The numbers don’t lie. Church attendance across the board is down. Organized religion has never been under more scrutiny by the public than now. Scandals have eroded the church’s credibility.

Is it any wonder that millions of Catholics have left the church because of the ongoing sexual abuse that has been exposed?

Televangelists acting badly helped destroy people’s beliefs when they took their money in the name of God, and bought themselves all the luxury’s possible in this world with it. The question I have is; what do people turn to after their religious beliefs have been turned upside down?

“Americans' confidence in religious institutions has hit an all-time low, with only 44 percent expressing a "great deal" of confidence in organized religion, according to a new Gallup survey.

This follows a downward trend since the 1970s, when 68 percent of Americans had a high degree of confidence. Gallup cites two big blows to confidence in organized religion: 1980s scandals involving televangelists like Jim Bakker and the Catholic sex abuse scandal in the 2000s.

It's also worth noting that organized religion is far from the only institution in which Americans are losing confidence. Americans also are souring on schools, banks and television news, according to Gallup's survey.”

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

One hopes they lose enough confidence in big business to form enormous trade unions. Research shows that when 1/3 of the population is unionized the standard of living rises significantly, job security improves, economic wealth improves, inequality and poverty decrease, in short raising the fist at your boss and demanding to be paid a fair share of the corporate earnings is good for everyone.